coletrane wrote:Okay, now for hypothetical question:
Let's assume I end up somewhere that reflects my numbers, like Cal State - Northridge, and I do everything you said; would that make me a strong candidate for a tier 1 school like say CU - Boulder or will it just mean that I will still end up at Joe's Fine College type of program?
Unfortunately, at this point you're a risk, and top schools don't take risks, ever. There's no real incentive anymore, so many excellent undergrads apply that they don't need to take anyone with any red flag anywhere in their history.
Now, it's not the end of the world. A top school has two things going for it, both of which can be mitigated against at a lower ranked school if you plan carefully.
1. Top schools are good at everything. Lower ranked schools, on the other hand, only excel in 1-2 focused research categories. Many of them don't even have research that covers the full breadth of physics (leaving out nuclear research, for instance, or plasma research). So, when applying, you're going to have to already know what you want to do. Find a research group in your master's program whose work you're excited about, get to know the field really well (publish!!!), and then apply to schools that focus on that particular subfield. I don't mean something as general as, say, CME, I mean something as specific as nanolithography or superconductors.
2. Top schools are more prestigious, and generally have better placements for their grad students in academia. Lower ranked schools have some dead-end research groups. Identify them, and stay away. Look to see where your potential advisers have sent their grad students for postdocs, and make sure there is close to 100% placement, with a good percentage getting into top 10 programs. Also, it's good to take stock of which schools provide collaborators for your PA (in fields where this makes sense). Working under a guy who works really closely with groups at Caltech or Chicago is almost as good as working with the guys at Caltech and Chicago--you'll probably interact with the bigwigs pretty often, and will have a chance to ask them for recommendations and affix their name in some way to your application. Identify the leading lights of the department (the professors the school is most proud of). If you have no interest in any of their research, don't apply to that school (there are more schools in the 20-50 range than the 1-10 range; choose wisely). When you get in, work tirelessly to get in to the groups headed by the leading lights.
It's not the end of the world, but it is a major setback. You have a long fight ahead of you, and you'll have to compete from a disadvantage at every level of the journey--to get in, to join the best research groups, to get a good postdoc, and to get a faculty position. Missing on any of these could be a death knell to your physics career. That said, I gave up a top 15 school to attend a school ranked somewhere in the 30's, and I don't feel like I gave up much in terms of future opportunity. The school I will attend is strong in my interests (their astrophysics department does it exclusively), and my potential advisers are connected closely to top people and are in leadership positions in major collaborations (headquartered at places like Chicago, Berkeley, LSST corp, etc). I've also already been given a position in the research group I wanted, but for most people in your position things wont work out as well.